Glenn Beck has a job to do; it is to get ratings primarily but beyond that he is a valued teacher within the conservative movement who provides the information to enable you and me to educate our family and friends on what the left is doing to our country; to enable us explain who Obama really is to the Star Struck and the American Idol voters we all know and love in our lives and hopefully enlighten them.
On Friday, July 30th, Glenn Beck had an on-air meeting in his weekly Refounding America show with the so-called TEA Party leaders in America (actually five Tea party leaders), four were in studio and one was by phone.
First, let me throw some background at you on what I’ve witnessed over the last year (has it been that long?). Since last year watching the whole Top Conservatives on Twitter (TCOT) leadership fiasco, I had a sneaking suspicion that a greater struggle would soon begin over who was the “Leader” of the TEA Party. It seemed to me and others that a foot race had begun with several former politicians and other people with means, on seeing the beginnings of a grass fire popular conservative movement, trying to sprint out in front of the thing and yell “Look at me! Over here! Carry my sign and buy my t-shirts!” The left was only too willing to point to some of these people as evidence of an Astroturf movement, rather than the real ground-up movement it was and is today.
In the midst of all this, I had been given (accepted) co-admin responsibility of the California TCOT .ning site (which has since been shuttered due to pricing changes at Ning), and began trying to gather information on all the California groups I could to develop CATCOT into a sort of clearinghouse where a person could go to find information on events happening in their area. I emailed Mark Meckler about having somebody list their events at the CATCOT site, and gave up after one email when I was told, basically, “List your events on our site.” I’m paraphrasing, but whatever.
After that I learned about egos and herding cats was going to be a waste of my time. I started trolling Facebook pages looking for event information to post at CATCOT, but gave up after a couple months when my co-admin got busy with her own group and I had military and family stuff to deal with, so I eventually gave that up too and checked the dying site for spammers occasionally, but basically just let it quietly die.
The whole TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party concept to me was and remains a way for like-minded conservatives to meet, “conspire”, and enjoy each other’s company while comparing notes on various conservative candidates and politicians, then go home and put those ideas into action on the ground in support of candidates. At first it was a way to warn the DC establishment gang that there are consequences to their actions and inactions, and those consequences are in the form of removing them from their cushy jobs and replacing them with real representatives of We the People. We marched; we blew the DC establishment types away with our sudden surge and left them afraid for the first time in ages that they might just have gone too far. They squirmed, they threw their political speak at us which to their surprise no longer worked, and they sought to minimize us and put us in a box which they could conveniently label and then ignore. We wouldn’t let them; any of them
On the left and right, in both major parties, there is plenty of room to improve. I’ve heard it said that the TEA Party idea crosses party lines, and I’ve witnessed this first hand. Plenty of Democrats are not only disillusioned with their party’s antics, but outraged by what they’ve seen of late. They find themselves today where we in the Republican Party were just a couple of years ago, glad their side is in charge, but not sure if what they’re seeing is especially good. Where do they go? What do they do?
So now we come back to Friday’s Glenn Beck program and some of the infighting that was painfully on display;
…This is a sad day… Just listen to both clips from today… I don’t see my Tea Party representative leadership there because there is none… there is no one who represents me or my vote. To trash one TEA Party organization while uplifting others due to one member’s behavior doesn’t cut it, unless they all were corrupt (not unlike our current government’s administration… eh?). To chastise Amy [Amy Kremer at Tea Party Express]
after she was off the phone was chicken. I expect better from those who want to unite Patriots not cause a fight…
Two YouTube videos embedded at the above linked site show how Glenn Beck, seemingly wanting to “get to the bottom” of the Mark Williams controversy, grilled Amy Kremer on why she didn’t properly throw Williams under the bus after he made his idiotic rant which he posted at his weblog. As Aaron Gardner writes;
Mark Williams is a complete moron for writing that piece when and how he wrote it. It surpasses the level of stupid often relegated to Ron Paul. He gave the NAACP exactly what they wanted. He allowed himself to become distracted and lashed out in emotional response.
I agree with Aaron, in fact I was one of the ones who went to the comments section of that Williams post and “returned rant” at Williams for coming across as an arrogant jerk toward one commenter who politely suggested the Mark may want to consider the ramifications of the garbage he had written (my words, not those of the commenter which were polite as hell, considering how condescending Williams turned out to be toward him). Anyway, this is in the weeds and ADD may be kicking in, so bear with me.
Mouth in the South continues after the video clips;
I might point out that this has already become fodder for the Loony Left. I don’t think this was intentional, but I think it’s time to get back to basics. Is it time to unite or has it become time to pick a fight within the conservative movement? There are critical issues for our country these days and times and this moment is sad! This is not a popularity contest and Patriots are not becoming wealthy! Sorry Glenn, you did offend!
Now, a good history lesson concerning Mark Williams can be found here, if you want to delve, the real point that Amy Kremer made, which was totally (I think) ignored by Glenn Beck, may be found here in the video; “The time has come to put down the protest signs and pick up the campaign signs, because that’s how we’re going to affect change is at the ballot box.” she said.
And that is the bottom line. It’s time to get out the vote, get conservative candidates elected to public office and dump the liberals on both sides of the isle. If whatever TEA Party group that exists isn’t today focused on that very thing, they are a waste of time, energy, and focus, and we should run as far away from them as possible, as fast as possible.
I’m not saying Tea Party Express is doing more along the lines of Getting Out The Vote (GOTV) than Tea Party Patriots, or Tea Party Whatever, or vice versa, and frankly I’m sick of the infighting. Screw them all if they can’t play nice and work together on one common goal, GOTV.
There is gobs of stuff available on why to get out the vote and how, starting right here;
Unlike the Left, this road map is being posted out in the open for all to see. Why? Because the Left has its battle plans to take over America and it is time YOU learned their ground game and used it to reclaim this country.
Your numbers are greater. Your resolve is superior. And, unlike theirs, your cause is moral.
In just a few months, America’s future will be determined by YOU and your ability to turn agitation and activism into concrete results.
The whole Glenn Beck Show episode should be available here eventually, if it’s not already, but seriously, Beck needs to not only inform and get his viewers fired up and motivated to change the system, but also maybe kind of nudge them in the right direction as well. At this point, with one episode anyway, he seems to be stoking the very fires he seeks to quench on the left with their “Ah HA!” tactics, and the left has ammunition enough to de-motivate the right without Beck “putting it on the chalkboard” for them.
Don’t get me wrong, I watch Beck’s show pretty much nightly, and I’d even take notes were it not so close to bedtime for me. In fact, I watch his show in bed, (11PM Pacific), so the dots he connects can be the stuff of nightmares, literally.
To be sure I wasn’t off base with my line of thinking, I sent a draft of this to a friend who goes by ColdWarrior at RedState.com and asked him what he thought. ColdWarrior is a guy who can take a discussion about what’s the best kind of ice cream at Baskin-Robbins and turn it into a discussion about how important it is to not only get involved politically, but also to become a Precinct Committeeman in the GOP and take over the party from within. What he wrote back totally went where I was going, but used a lot less words. I hereby commandeer a paragraph, well, two;
Glenn Beck invited the leaders of five grass roots conservative “tea party” and “9.12″ organizations to his program ostensibly to discuss with them what they were DOING to make a difference politically in light of the fact that, despite all their rallies and protests, the Democrats passed Obamacare anyway.
But, despite a one hour discussion, the ONLY substantive, concrete thing uttered came from Amy Kremer of Tea Party Express who, rather spending her time basking in Beck’s glow on the program was up in Alaska actually making a real difference working on a campaign. She managed to get this sound bite into her remarks: “[U]timately I think that what we need is to focus on is getting true conservatives elected to office. The time has come to put down the protest signs and pick up the campaign sings and get involved because that’s how we’re truly going to affect changes at the ballot box.”
Ummm, yeah, what he said.
